Questioning and learning

Text: Joachim Ritter

Everyone has a source of inspiration to resort to, especially at times when you are not bursting with quite so much creativity as you would like to be. Referring to a source of inspiration is sometimes enough to give you a friendly shove in the right direction, or perhaps even to encourage you to take a different view of things. This is usually sufficient to keep a person of principle on course– although it is often not easy not to betray your own principles when confronted with “mob rules” situations every day of your working life. I get my inspiration from ‘Die Zeit’, a German national weekly newspaper I subscribe to, which is well-regarded for its journalistic quality. For some reason, the editorial team always seem to hit on topics that happen to figure in my life or what is occupying my thoughts when they are published. The latter includes events and developments in the lighting world of course, and many of the ideas addressed in the newspaper articles can also be applied in that context. Last week’s edition of the newspaper focussed on two topics that I have been thinking a lot about recently. One topic is “the truth” and the other “failure“.

The truth.
This topic is linked very closely with light, because truth is concerned with the way we perceive things, what we take to be true or not to be true, so to speak. With the multitude of communication channels we have nowadays, including news reports in print media, on the Internet and of course rumours spread by word of mouth, it is quite a challenge to establish what the „real” truth is and to accept it without reservations. When we see that there was scientific evidence of a further receptor in the human eye (iPRGC) in the year 2001 already, and that it took ten years before the lighting industry truly registered the fact, this in effect means ten years have been lost. I won’t even embark on climate change …On the other hand, the amount of research that is being carried right now out is on the increase. According to Die Zeit there are approximately seven million scientists involved in research projects around the world today, and 30,000 scientific journals available in which they can publish their findings. For budgetary reasons, researchers (and institutions) are under immense pressure to publish their work. Under these conditions it can occur that the truth suffers, or shifts, a little. If research findings are not backed up, their relevance will disappear with time. It is incredibly important that new knowledge is verified and replication studies are carried out systematically so that findings that are generally accepted as valid can be verified as true, or not. In the lighting world it is even more critical when it comes to the publication of so-called press releases and the mass of platforms, and Internet platforms in particular, available. The quantity is growing, the quality is sinking. What teams of editors did in the past – checking facts, figures and information to make sure it is all true – is lost today in the maelstrom of everyday mass. Even the most banal of announcements are done up to look like serious press information and end up being published because the space available online is just about endless. It used to be compulsory to make optimal use of the space in a magazine by publishing what was the most important. Today, many attempt to secure their position through sheer volume. “If you can’t fight, wear a big hat”, my father-in-law was known to say. The pressure of competition today results in sensational news being published without having been verified or commented on. Hearsay is enough to warrant being interpreted as the truth. Thus even the smallest “adjustments” to the truth can have fatal consequences. And that applies as much to breaking news about the performance of LEDs as it does to developments within companies or the activities of professional associations.

Failure.
The failure to realise a concept or to follow a chosen path remains a problem as long as you ignore it as a failure. Failure can be part of advancement and helpful, as long as you draw the right consequences from mistakes made and misguided developments as early as possible in order not to forfeit everything you have invested. Failure therefore means that you have come to the point when you understand what is wrong and that you can learn from mistakes. In principle, a sound approach. The worst thing that can happen is when failure is recognised but nothing is done about it. The truth –there’s that word again – is ignored or distorted, because nobody dares to question anything and those responsible get their way to the bitter end. Examples in the lighting world? Well, we could take the sodium lamp, the mercury lamp, the com-pact fluorescent lamp or even the activities of certain professional groupings. The industry needs to focus on future trends and be honest about technologies that are neither effective, healthy or viable. Anything else is bound to lead to loss of reputation and failure. And running a professional association based on voluntary work and a lack of professionalism is also a sure way to fail.

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